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by tck_aesthetic



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 17:51:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15868701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tck_aesthetic/pseuds/tck_aesthetic
Summary: What happens to Bobbie during and after the S3 finale.





	Home

She’s in another shootout, doing what she was trained, what she was born, to do. Her reflexes are sharp, and she takes control of the situation like she’s done dozens of times before, Martians at her back and an enemy at her front. The way it was before her time on Earth. Then, with a single word, “Bobbie?”, her world falls apart, and enemy changes to family, team changes to dangerous. She sucks in a breath, tries to salvage the situation. Alex surrenders, and she thinks, It’ll be okay, even as her team glares and questions, not trusting, never trusting after her desertion. Her and Alex are on opposite sides but the same side, and the sheer whiplash of it all leaves her head reeling as she tries, desperately, to get him to stop. She can feel the threads of her loyalty unraveling, tugging at the two separate edges of her soul, the Martian and the Human. Alex is telling her that they’re doing what’s right, and she believes him, believes that she’s on the wrong side of the battle. Before she can process it Alex is being tackled in front of her, shots are being fired from behind her, and everything falls apart.   
“Stand down! Goddamnit, stand down!” Her voice is high and she sounds scared to her own ears, scared and desperate. She knocks her teammate down, kicks her as she pulls a gun, falls back against the wall. Alex escapes her other marine’s hold, and she screams at Amos not to shoot as he pulls the trigger. Her teammate hits the floor, and Bobbie looks down at the remnants of her career, her life. She picks up her weapon, all that she has now, and the “Clear” she calls when Amos asks how many more is the hollowest word she’s ever uttered. The adrenaline is fading as she makes her way down the hall, and suddenly she can feel the agony blooming in her stomach.   
“Shit,” she whispers, and then she’s collapsing, legendary strength failing her as she sprawls on the floor. Alex is above her, pressing on her wound, before he, too, goes hazy and her vision blacks out. 

She’s in front of a board of admirals, in irons, wound in her side burning. Their voices are all raised, overlapping in an incomprehensible cacophony of condemnation. The onslaught is grating, and she turns only to see a panel of Blues behind her, Avasarala at the head. Rejection from the MCRN she could withstand, but Avasarala leading her court-martial sends her to her knees. Avasarala's voice cuts above the rest, her low and accented tone no longer softened for Bobbie, the full force of her political might thundering behind her words. She’ll never go back to Mars, but Earth won’t have her either.   
“For all your famed Martian loyalty,” Avasarala tells her, “you hold no allegiance to anyone but yourself.” Coytar stands beside her, her perished squad falling into line behind Avasarala the way they used to follow her, faces impassive and decaying.   
“I was loyal to you,” she protests, voice weak even to her own ears, and Avasarala laughs, that mocking laugh that Bobbie never thought she’d be on the receiving end of.   
“You don’t even know what loyalty is.” 

Hearing her deepest fears out of the mouth of her most respected ally jolts her into painful wakefulness, and she moves to clutch her side with a muffled gasp. For a moment she thinks she’s back to the moment she lost her team, again, waking up broken and alone in the med bay, and she panics, jerking at the medical cuff around her arm. It beeps angrily, and a woman’s voice, Naomi, she thinks, is soothing in her ear before she’s drifting back into unconsciousness. 

The next time she becomes aware of her surroundings, she’s in considerably less pain, in the med bay of the Roci. The room is empty, so Bobbie doesn’t feel the need to get up, put on a brave face. Her final betrayal of her people has left her broken. She sees her murdered squad, her teammates lying on the floor after she attacked them, and jerks her arm again so the the medical cuff will give her more drugs. It does. 

Bobbie says nothing when Naomi asks how she’s feeling, just stares, eyes half-lidded, at the ceiling. She says nothing when Naomi sighs and places a tech bandage over the wound on her stomach, just allows the woman to fix her up. When she’s done, Bobbie gets up for the first time in days, walks to the quarters she’d once shared with Avasarala, and lays carefully down, imagining that if she concentrates hard enough, she can smell the faint traces of Chrisjen’s perfume, can hear the echoes of her accent in the small room. She misses the woman, strange as it sounds, misses having a mission to protect and assist her, misses her snarky commentary, hilarious swearing, cutting sense of humour. She misses the security the woman brought her. In a time when Bobbie had none, the woman felt like home. She falls asleep clutching the blanket to her chest.

The hand terminal sits on the shelf near her bed, and she’s staring at it. She’s under the protection of the Roci crew, so there’s no reason why she can’t log on. It’s the first and last thing she wants to do, but Bobbie’s no coward, so she grabs the piece of glass and scans her thumbprint. There’s one new notification, missed comm from Chrisjen Avasarala. She hits the callback button, closes her eyes, and lets the ringtone wash over her. It cuts off, and her eyes open. Avasarala looks tired, worried. Her time as Secretary General has clearly taken its toll, but the woman looks no less intimidating, no less radiant. She opens her mouth, and Bobbie nearly flinches, hears you don’t even know what loyalty is, before Chrisjen starts speaking.  
“Bobbie,” she says, voice warm. “It’s so good to see you.”


End file.
